This invention relates to a molding mat composed mainly of woody fibers.
So far known molding mats using woody fibers as the main raw material thereof include a product obtained by blending long fibers and a thermoplastic or thermoset resin adhesive with woody fibers (see Japanese patent application laid-open No. Sho 51-43478/1976) and a product obtained by blending low melting point thermoplastic fibers and a thermoset resin with woody fibers and long fibers, followed by heat-treating the resulting blend at a temperature lower than the curing temperature of the thermoset resin to thereby stabilize the resulting material through melt adhesion of the thermoplastic resin fibers (see Japanese patent application laid-open No. Sho 59-120440/1984). According to the former process, since the structure of the mat is retained only by entanglement of the fibers, the resulting product has a low strength so that there are the drawbacks that breakage occurs during the carrying step at the time of molding or its fitting step to a mold, or tears are liable to occur in the molded product. According to the latter process, although the strength of the mat is improved to a certain extent, since the interfilamentary adhesion relies on dropwise molten thermoplastic fibers, it is impossible to make use of the strength of the thermoplastic fibers themselves so that there is the drawback that the distribution of the adhesion points is sparse and the resulting mat is still liable to cause tears at the time of molding, particularly at the time of deep drawing molding.